Sept. 15 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. judges in Texas may not rule
on claims that Governor Rick Perry and Republican lawmakers
distorted election maps to keep Latinos out of office until a
panel of Washington judges decides if the districting complies
with federal voter protections, lawyers in the case said.

Closing arguments are under way today in San Antonio
federal court, where Latino activists and state attorneys have
faced off in a two-week trial over Texas’s new congressional
districts.

“The San Antonio court will hold back and wait until the
D.C. court decides these are legally enforceable maps or not,”
said Dallas election lawyer Michael Li, who is monitoring the
Texas redistricting fight. “If the D.C. court decides they are
legal, the San Antonio court will then rule on the racial
gerrymandering claims. If the D.C. court finds the new maps
violate the Voting Rights Act, the issue will come back to San
Antonio, and the judges here will draw new maps.”

As the three-judge panel in San Antonio has weighed
evidence from dueling redistricting and demographic experts, a
different three-judge panel in Washington has taken up the same
challenge on a different track.

Texas sued the Obama Administration in the District of
Columbia federal court, requesting “pre-clearance” for the
state’s new maps under the federal Voting Rights Act, a step
required of all states with a history of voting-rights
violations.

New Seats

The state gained four new seats in Congress after adding
4.3 million residents in the 2010 census. About 65 percent of
that growth came from Hispanics, who sued state lawmakers on
claims the Republican-controlled legislature drew maps that
lacked any new districts that favored the election of Latinos.

Joaquin Avila, a veteran voting rights lawyer representing
Texas Hispanic lawmakers in the case, said the San Antonio trial
was held in advance of the D.C. court ruling to save time. Texas
candidates must declare for office in November, and the
Washington court may not rule until October or November.

“We really couldn’t wait until the DC court decided to
start our trial here,” Avila said in an interview during the
trial. “The San Antonio court wanted to have all the evidence
in so it can customize its opinion based on the ruling that
comes out of D.C.”

During the San Antonio trial, Latino activists presented
evidence they claim shows Texas lawmakers were warned the new
election districts discriminated against Hispanics.

Issued Warning

“The state’s argument is that nothing they’ve done is
intentional, but every congressman warned them this map would
violate the Voting Rights Act and wouldn’t pass Justice
Department approval in Washington,” Luis Vera, a lawyer
representing the League of United Latin American Citizens, or
LULAC, in the trial, said in an interview yesterday.

Vera said the U.S. Supreme Court standard is “if you know
what the effect of an action is going to be, that’s intent
because you knew what was going to happen.”

State lawyers denied that legislators racially
gerrymandered the new maps to prevent the election of Latinos.
Instead, they claimed lawmakers distorted districts along
political party lines to favor Republicans over Democrats, which
is legal. Republicans hold 23 of Texas’s current 32
congressional seats.

Deputy Attorney General David Schenck said the new map
doesn’t disadvantage minorities because white voters support
minority candidates.

Record Levels

“Whites are voting for and electing African-American and
Latino candidates at record levels” in Texas, Schenck told the
judges. “They just happen to be Republicans.”

In Washington, the Obama Administration has until Sept. 19
to say whether it supports or rejects Texas’s map in the “pre-clearance” lawsuit.

“Then we’ll know whether the Justice Department is for us
or against us,” Vera, the LULAC attorney, said.

This is the second time Perry, 61 and a Republican
candidate for president, has been sued over Texas’s election
maps. When Republicans seized control of the state legislature
and redrew districts in 2003 to penalize Democrats, Hispanics
sued on claims the maps were racially discriminatory. Experts at
the trial last week testified that Latinos most often support
Democratic candidates.

That earlier challenge, lead by LULAC, went to the U.S.
Supreme Court, which found Texas’s election maps in violation of
the Voting Rights Act and redrew them. The maps currently being
challenged are an attempt by Perry and state lawmakers to
reconfigure districts back in favor of Republicans, Vera said.

‘Fair Process’

“But they’re doing it on the backs of Hispanics,” he
said.

Perry, who approved the legislature’s map in July, declared
his candidacy for U.S. president in August.

“The legislature determined and approved the map, and the
governor signed it and believes it went through a fair
process,” Catherine Frazier, a Perry spokeswoman, said in an
interview at the start of the trial.

“The state is confident that the new legislative and
congressional maps comply with both the federal Voting Rights
Act and the U.S. Constitution,” Lauren Bean, a spokeswoman for
the Texas Attorney General’s office, said in an e-mail today on
the conclusion of the San Antonio trial.

The Texas case is Perez v. Perry, 5:11-cv-0360, U.S.
District Court, Western District of Texas (San Antonio). The
Washington case is Texas v. the U.S., 1:11-cv-1391, U.S.
District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).